Rockstar Games Reassure ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Will Not Be Delayed After Raw Gameplay Footage Leaks Online: “We Are Extremely Disappointed”

Ryan Pearson |

Sep 20, 2022

Source: Grand Theft Auto V (2013), Rockstar Games

A hacker has exposed multiple videos of Grand Theft Auto VI, but Rockstar Games have assured they “do not anticipate any disruption” leading up to its eventual release.

Fans have been eagerly awaiting news on the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series — so much so one man even invaded a live German TV show demanding answers last year. Details had begun to slowly leak out, with rumors and insider sources claiming one of the game’s protagonists would be female, and would avoid content deemed “punching down.”

However, the floodgates have now opened. “Teapotuberhacker” posted to the fan-supported GTA Forums “GTA 6 (Americas) leak – 90+ .mp4 footage/videos.” “Hi, Here are 90 footage/clips from GTA 6,” the user causally announced. “Its possible i could leak more data soon, GTA 5 and 6 source code and assets, GTA 6 testing build. My telegram is @djjdndhdbx for any question.”

In a later post, the user showed an image of what seemed to be Grand Theft Auto VI‘s uncompiled source code (including the alleged code-name “Americas”), along with images of the .rar containing the videos. They also claimed they were behind the Uber hack earlier this month by citing the New York Times report.

Suffice to say, the current version of the thread has removed the download links. Even then, the original file host has also had the files removed, along with third party uploads on social media and YouTube being purged.

A later version of Teapotuberhacker’s post was edited to read “Ok so this has gone unexpectedly viral, woke up to 3000 Telegram DM’s If you are a employee of Rockstar or Take2 and your trying to contact me.”

“Send me a message containing 22559219889638875756 on telegram Or you can email me at teapotuberhacker@protonmail.com **from your corporate email address** I will try to read all these reply soon – i am looking to negotiate a deal,” Teapotuberhacker threatened.

While it may be questionable to negotiate after releasing such a large amount of Grand Theft Auto VI information, the user did reveal the game’s source code. Should it have any online features, releasing it would be a free pass to hackers, along with allowing anyone to “pirate” an early build. The current version of the post has removed the negotiation message.

Reports have indicated that the Grand Theft Auto VI videos showed characters walking through a “Vice City Metro” train station, indicating prior rumors of the game taking place in a Miami like area were true. Vice City, as it was in the original 2002 Grand Theft Auto game, is based on Miami.

Along with implementing Red Dead Redemption’s NPC conversation system, the rumored female protagonist has also been confirmed. Store robberies, strip clubs, in-game brands such as Pißwasser and Vespucci, and (of course) guns and cars all return.

Rockstar Games released a statement confirming the files were obtained by hacking, along with copyright strikes confirming the videos’ legitimacy. “We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next Grand Theft Auto.”

“At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live game services nor any long-term effect on the development of our ongoing projects,” Rockstar confirmed, suggesting Grand Theft Auto VI would not suffer due to the hack.

“We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you all in this way. Our work on the next Grand Theft Auto game will continue as planned and we remain as committed as ever to delivering an experience to you, our players, that truly exceeds your expectations,” Rockstar emphasized.

“We will update everyone again soon and, of course, will properly introduce you to this next game when it is ready. We want to thank everyone for their ongoing support through this situation.”